


Like the ocean in a fire

by Builder



Series: Nat on Fire [8]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Eating Disorders, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Sickfic, Steve Rogers & Natasha Romanov Friendship, Vomiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-30
Updated: 2019-06-30
Packaged: 2020-05-31 11:36:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19425190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Builder/pseuds/Builder
Summary: “God, what do you think I did?  OD?” Nat hacks between heaves.“Only if your drug of choice is peanut butter.”  Steve doesn’t laugh, but he leaves the space for one.“Right.”  Nat sputters until the dregs of mucous are gone from her lips, then flushes the toilet with her sticky fingers.  “Lemme go.”“Only if you promise not to fall.”





	Like the ocean in a fire

**Author's Note:**

  * For [xxx_cat_xxx](https://archiveofourown.org/users/xxx_cat_xxx/gifts).



> Find me on tumblr @builder051

_____

Death comes sweeping through the hallway, like a lady’s dress  
Death comes driving down the highway, in it’s Sunday best

A fire of unknown origin took my baby away

_____

Earth’s secretary. That’s what she is now. Or at least that’s what Nat feels like, sitting with her feet up on the desk, answering video calls and setting up intergalactic board meetings. She’s role played as the lowly girl with the human resources job often enough to know that this isn’t it, but it’s still too close to comfort. Or maybe too far away. Nat would give a lot to backtrack a few years and show up in Pepper Potts’s airy CEO office where the work was easy and the views were good.

Now all she has a view of is the bottom of the bag of peanut butter M&Ms and the cluttered desk below it. She meant to take it slow, eat one per document she read and call it dinner, but she’s read nothing and swallowed the candy by the handful. She sighs at herself and shrugs. Figures. She’s always been impulsive.

Nat runs her tongue over her teeth, wishing she had more hard sugary coating to crack on the tip of her tongue. Not because it tastes particularly good, but because it hurts. Tiny cuts form on the inside of her mouth where the shards of hardened sweetness press into her flesh too hard, allowing the sugar and fat to hit her bloodstream directly, like tobacco under an addict’s lip.

Nat is an addict. She’s kicked her previous poisons of cocaine and nicotine, but this one seems to refuse to fade. She swallows a last gritty mouthful of candy and stands up, crumpling the empty bag and all but running for the bathroom. Her finger is halfway down her throat before she has the toilet lid up, as if going faster will make the action less sinful. 

Nat gags, tasting chocolate and clammy perspiration when her tongue presses against her palm. She pulls her hand back and vomits freely for a moment, a viscous mix brown and tan stuck to her lower lip until she cuts it with her teeth and sputters. Blood pounds in Nat’s ears, and she blinks away stars until she has the strength to swallow her hand again.

She only gets it halfway in before something else is pounding, though. The unmistakable clatter of a powerful fist against the stronghold’s door rings out along with an equally unmistakable shout. 

“Nat? Open up.”

She doesn’t hear the ‘It’s me’ tagged on the end because she’s too busy cursing, but no matter. She already knows it’s Steve outside, begging to be let in. He won’t come in of his own accord; he always waits for Nat to unlock and usher him in. It would be easy enough for him to take the key down to Home Depot and make a copy, or even to bust the door down and repair it in the same amount of time. But no. He waits for Nat.

It’s an expression of respect, just in case he catches her in a compromising position. Those are the words Steve used the first time he locked himself out on purpose. “What, like masturbating?” Nat had guffawed. Steve went a shade of carnation straight out of a box of Crayolas and shrugged, trying to play it off, but Nat knew he agreed with her on one point. That there was no one left around after the snap worth fucking.

“Nat?” Long pause. “You ok?”

She’s not and he knows it, though Steve’s still oblivious to the specifics. Nat’s barely emptied out half of the offending bag of sweets, and her face and hand are smeared with snot and peanut butter.

“I will break down this door if you don’t answer. I… I don’t care what you’re doing.”

It probably took a lot of guts for him to say that. And that means he’s serious. 

“Fuck…” Nat mumbles thickly, using her thumb to scrape gunk from between her fingers.

“I’ll give you till three. One…”

“God dammit.” Nat considers smashing her forehead into the tank of the toilet, but thinks better of it. She’ll have to pay to fix it. And the door. And probably Steve, too, once he’s scarred with the vision of what she’s doing.

“Two…”

“I’m coming,” Nat croaks, knowing Steve can hear her even though her voice is soft and crackly. “Fuck.” She stumbles on her way down the hall and reaches for the wall to catch herself. It leaves a gooey handprint on the dull white paint, and the sight of it makes her curse again.

“Nat?”

She scrubs her hand down the side of her pants to get off the worst of the mess, then attacks the doorknob with her shaking fingers. “Patience, Rogers,” she mutters. The lock finally clicks and the door swings open. Nat steps back to keep it from hitting her in the face, and she uses the momentary shadow to wipe her face in the crook of her elbow. “What?”

“Are…are you ok?”

Nat doesn’t make eye contact. It hits her that she’s the definition of unprofessional in sweats and a camisole, hair down, and the unspeakable still sticky on her hands. It’s especially bad compared to Steve’s neat khakis. Nat wonders for a moment if she’s ever seen him in jeans. She supposes she must have, but can’t put a finger on the time or place.

“You’re not ok.” It isn’t a question this time.

“I’m fine,” Nat coughs defiantly. “Just…” She searches for something to say to reassure him, but she knows it’s no use. “Just mind your own business, Rogers.”

“Ok, ok.” Steve takes a step backward, expertly avoiding the uneven terrain of the doormat. “I promise I will, just as soon as I’m sure you’re alright.” He squints at Nat as if looking through her. Nat hopes he isn’t, because there are bottles of Delsym and Smirnoff on the desk along with the empty M&Ms bag.

“I’m fine,” Nat mutters again. But as she speaks, something hot and bitter rises in the back of her throat. There’s no warning wave of nausea, just a rush of thick and sticky that winds up on the floor between her stocking feet.

“Nat?” Steve grabs her by one skinny arm to keep her from toppling over. He seems unphased by the sickness, just over involved like usual. “Ok. Uh, come on.” He spins Nat sideways with a delicate motion and sweeps her legs out from under her. Nat’s lost for a second, then realizes she’s being carried in a bridal hold. 

“What happened?” Steve pauses in front of the offending handprint on the wall, then sets her down in the doorway of the bathroom.

“What do you think, dumbass?” Nat sniffles and gulps, wishing she felt sick enough to vomit again and not just the annoyingly queasy in-between. “Compromising–” she pauses to quell a belch. “Position.”

“Oh.” It’s clearly not what Steve expected. He starts to go red in the cheeks, but he goes pale instead when Nat feels herself blanch. 

“Get out of here, ok?” Nat gives him a shove and turns back to the toilet for a fruitless gag. She has her fingers in her mouth again before she can stop herself, bending deeply at the waist to get gravity on her side. The door clicks shut, and she breathes out a sigh of relief until a hand appears on her back and realizes Steve’s on the wrong side of it.

“You don’t have to tell me,” he whispers, supporting Nat’s ass with one hip so as to be as decorous as possible. He snakes one arm around her waist and thumps her on the back with the other hand. “But you do have to get it all up.”

“God, what do you think I did? OD?” Nat hacks between heaves.

“Only if your drug of choice is peanut butter.” Steve doesn’t laugh, but he leaves the space for one. 

“Right.” Nat sputters until the dregs of mucous are gone from her lips, then flushes the toilet with her sticky fingers. “Lemme go.”

“Only if you promise not to fall.”

“I think I can take one step without you, Captain…” She means to follow it up with a rude nickname, like Obvious or Unhelpful, but she can’t think of something quickly enough. Or at least something that’s true.

“Ok.” Steve moves his hands to Nat’s hips like a backward slow dance as she hunches over the sink for a quick wash. She still leaves shadows of chocolate on the hand towel when she’s finished, but she’s cleaner than she was. Nat exhales, trying for a nonverbal ‘get off me,’ but Steve doesn’t budge.

“You, uh, want to talk?” He makes eye contact with her in the mirror.

“Not particularly.” Nat clears her throat. “You think we need to?”

“Well,” Steve sighs. “If you’re leaving the desk unmanned and doing…whatever you’re doing…” he trails off, looking embarrassed again. 

“Sorry to make you so uncomfortable,” Nat says, crossing her arms over her aching stomach. “I don’t expect you to understand.”

“Oh, I understand.” Steve takes in Nat’s tremor and puts a hand on her again. “Maybe not your reasoning, but the, uh, thing itself.”

“What, you do–?” Nat gestures at the unclean toilet.

“I–no.” Steve swallows, as if the words themselves are nauseating. “When I was younger. And only if I was already sick.”

“Ah,” Nat nods. “The ol’ get it over with?”

Steve presses his lips together. “Yeah.”

“Who says that’s not what I’m doing?”

“I…” Steve starts. “I guess I don’t know.”

“Ok,” Nat says. “How about we keep it that way.”

Steve sighs, knowing he’s lost. “Ok.”

“Alright.” Nat pulls the hand towel from the rack and uses it to wipe out the sink. She wads it between her hands, unsure if she’s supposed to leave or stay put. She wants to escape to her bedroom at the end of the hall, but she imagines Steve following her in there, too, and she has to fight a cringe.

The ring of the satellite phone interrupts Nat’s thoughts, and she breathes a sigh of relief. She takes a step toward the door, swallowing thick saliva as she looks introspectively for a shot of confidence that doesn’t come from a bottle.

“Here. I got this one.” Steve pats Nat’s shoulder and edges out the door before she can stop him. “Take a break. Maybe a rest.”

“You wish,” Nat mumbles, turning the faucet on and off again.

Steve’s footsteps retreat down the hall, then Nat hears the beep of the phone’s holographic feature turning on.

“You’re not Tash.” It’s Rhodey’s voice on the other end of the call.

“Sorry,” Steve tells him. “Nat can’t come to the phone right now.”

“Ok, I’ll just save the world on my own, I guess.” She can practically hear the man’s sarcastic shrug. “There’s a threat over west Asia.”

“Can you handle it?” Steve asks. “I’m needed on this side of the globe.”

“I, uh, I guess…”

“Good. Thanks, Rhodey.”

“Cool deal, boss.”

The call cuts out, and heavy footfalls meander through the tiny kitchen and back up the hallway before dying out into a damp scrape as Steve cleans the disgusting handprint from the wall.

Nat decides she can’t take it anymore. “Hey.” She balls her hands into fists by her sides. “You don’t have to do that.”

“Yeah, I do,” Steve says. “Maybe it’s the only thing I can do.” He gives her a hard look.

Nat’s eyes burn, and she reluctantly looks away first. “Fine,” she murmurs. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, Nat. You’re always welcome.”


End file.
